Andrew Fuller

Andrew Fuller
Baptist preacher
Born	6 February 1754 Cambridgeshire, England
Died	7 May 1815 England

Andrew Fuller (6 February 1754 – 7 May 1815) was an English Particular Baptist minister and theologian. Known as a promoter of missionary work, he also took part in theological controversy.

Biography

Fuller was born in Wicken, Cambridgeshire, and settled at Kettering, Northamptonshire. During his life, Fuller pastored two congregations — Soham (1775–1782) and Kettering (1782–1815), which is now the Fuller Baptist Church, He died on 7 May 1815 at Kettering.

Baptist Missionary Society

Fuller is best known in connection with the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society, to which he for the most part devoted his energies.^[1] His work in promoting the missionary enterprises of the Baptist church began about 1784. A sermon published by him then, The Nature and Importance of Walking by Faith, with an appendix A Few Persuasives to a General Union in Prayer for the Revival of Religion, indirectly stimulated the movement. The Baptist Missionary Society (initially "Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen")^[2] was formed at Kettering in 1792. William Carey, impressed by Fuller's work The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation, became the first missionary. Fuller took on the work at home.^[3]

Views

Fuller, a Particular Baptist, was a controversialist in defence of the governmental theory of the atonement against hyper-Calvinism on the one hand and Socinianism and Sandemanianism on the other. Abraham Booth accused him of giving up true Calvinism.^[4] Fuller debated theology with the General Baptist Dan Taylor, but they remained on good terms.^[5]

According to Christianity Today, "“Tall, stout and muscular, a famous wrestler in his youth,” this self-taught farmer’s son became a champion for Christ, “the most creatively useful theologian” of the Particular Baptists. His book The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, 1785, restated Calvinist theology for Baptists influenced by the Evangelical Revival. His Doctorate of Divinity was bestowed by Brown University, Rhode Island."

Works

Fuller wrote:^[3]

• The Gospel worthy of all acceptation, or the Obligations of Men fully to credit and cordially to approve whatever God makes known.
• The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems examined and compared as to their Moral Tendency, 1794, 1796, 1802.
• The Gospel its own Witness, or the Holy Nature and Divine Harmony of the Christian Religion contrasted with the Immorality and Absurdity of Deism, 1799–1800.
• An Apology for the late Christian Missions to India.
• Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel Pearce, A.M., of Birmingham, 1800.
• Expository Discourses on Genesis, 2 vols. 1806.
• Expository Discourses on the Apocalypse, 1815.
• Sermons on Various Subjects, 1814.
• The Backslider, 1801, 1840, 1847.

Fuller also wrote pamphlets, sermons, and essays. He contributed to Charles Edward de Coetlogon's Theological Miscellany, the Evangelical Magazine, the Missionary Magazine, the Quarterly Magazine, the Protestant Dissenters' Magazine, and the Biblical Magazine. John Ryland, in his Life of Fuller, enumerated 167 articles that Fuller had contributed. Editions of his Complete Works appeared in 1838, 1840, 1845, 1852, and 1853. Joseph Belcher edited an edition in three volumes for the Baptist Publication Society of Philadelphia, and his major publications were issued with a memoir by his son in Bohn's Standard Library, 1852.^[3]

See also

• Deathless Sermon
• Strict Baptist
• Reformed Baptist

Notes

1. Wood 1907.
2. Stanley, Brian. "Carey, William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4657. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3.  "Fuller, Andrew". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
4. Clipsham, E. F. "Booth, Abraham". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2871. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. Clipsham, E. F. "Taylor, Dan". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27023. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

References

• Brackney, William H. A Genetic History of Baptist Thought: With Special Reference to Baptists in Britain and North America. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004.
• Oliver, Robert, History of the English Calvinistic Baptists 1771 - 1892, Banner of Truth (2006), ISBN 0-85151-920-2
• The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: with a memoir of his life, in three volumes, Sprinkle Publications (1988), ISBN 1-59442-102-1

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Fuller, Andrew". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Fuller, Andrew". The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.

External links

• Andrew Fuller Project — is preparing a modern critical edition of The Works of Andrew Fuller. This project is led by Michael A. G. Haykin, the Principal of Toronto Baptist Seminary and professor of church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The project description page has a substantial section headed, "Andrew Fuller: Life & Legacy".
• Memoir, Sermons and Circular Letters (Archived 2009-10-25)edited by James Duvall, Baptist History Homepage.
• The Pastors Missionary Vision links to a [mp3 only] presentation by John Armstrong at the 1988 Desiring God Pastor's Conference, in which Armstrong draws heavily on Fuller's life and works.
• Holy Faith, Worthy Gospel, World Vision mp3 Andrew Fuller’s Broadsides Against Sandemanianism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Global Unbelief by John Piper at Desiring God 2007 Conference for Pastors.